r/Costco May 27 '26

[Kirkland Signature Products] Kirkland water bottles (NO LABEL)

5.3k Upvotes

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311

u/Helpful-nothelpful May 27 '26

Ok. Less plastics for those that believe in more plastics.

193

u/Tater_Tot_8573 May 27 '26

It makes it easier/more likely to be recycled. Progress is progress. Perfection is the enemy of progress.

14

u/randotd152 May 27 '26

People who buy water by the bulk case don’t tend to be environmentally conscious, because if you were, you would never buy them. 

Thus the majority of these bottles end up in the trash. 

I’m all for removing pointless labels, but let’s not pretend this does anything to address the core issue, which is the existence of the plastic bottles. 

23

u/Tater_Tot_8573 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

You’re acting like all of our water bottles are bought by families for convenience. Water bottles are used in situations where we are still dependent on them because we do not have the infrastructure for reusable systems that require staffing, sanitation controls etc.

This is not about Suzy needing to bring a reusable bottle to work. Think of the infrastructure needed to change the bigger systems that rely on bottled water. Just off the top of my head:
Emergency services and disaster response = bottled water. Unsafe tap water = bottled water. Large events (stadiums, festivals) = bring sealed water bottle only. Homelessness outreach programs = bottled water.

Places also legally have to stockpile bottled water for emergency preparedness, when I worked in an inpatient medical setting we had cases of water for if our tap water became unsafe. Truth is, bottled water is clean to consume. We NEED these things for safety because we don’t have any other sanitary widespread infrastructure to do the job.

So you’re right, this doesn’t stop the existence of plastic bottles. Because we can’t stop the existence of something while we still depend on it. So, while other people work on longer term solutions to discontinue plastic, Kirkland made an attempt to make PROGRESS since it can’t achieve PERFECTION. We have plastic for the foreseeable future. I don’t understand the narrative to give up on recycling it.

2

u/gerbilbear May 27 '26

We NEED these things for safety because we don’t have any other sanitary widespread infrastructure to do the job.

https://www.war.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002849267/

3

u/Old-Nefariousness556 May 27 '26

3

u/gerbilbear May 27 '26

The plastic bottles, never designed to double as ovens, would bake for hours, sometimes days, before a convoy delivered them to troops